Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2996

“Die... just die, bastard..."

Effie had the homunculus — what remained of it — pinned to the floor. Her emaciated figure was mangled and gruesomely brutalized, blood flowing down the polished steel of her battered armor like rust. There was no strength left in her body, no capacity to continue fighting... but her hazel eyes remained sharp and clear, burning with ruthless killing intent.

That killing intent, the predatory resolve to bring her prey down, was the only thing that pushed her to move now.

Beneath her, the thing that had been pretending to be the butler of Mirage Castle was still struggling to break free. The homunculus was in a ghastly state as well, his chest broken and caved in, countless wounds littering his artificial body. Only what spilled from his wounds was not blood — instead, it was liquid metal akin to mercury.

The creature refused to die, and while it was broken and savagely mutilated, it still retained the strength of a Supreme Devil. So even in this weakened state, the thing was still utterly deadly.

But so was Effie...

Effie was deadly, too. That was who she had become on the terrifying streets of the Dark City, hunting down abominations much more powerful than her in order not to starve. Her killer instinct might have become buried under the red dust of mundane life, but it was still there... it was still ruthlessly sharp and deadly, having only been made more so by the years of experience.

And so, she was intending to kill the homunculus.

"Die!"

Batting the thing's arms away with her mangled arm, she thrust her fingers into his neck. Pushing through the stone-hard mass of the creature's flesh, she growled and wrapped them around his spine.

And then, with a ferocious scream, she tore his head clean off his shoulders.

Well... not quite. There was nothing clean about it — in fact, it was the opposite.

A fountain of mercury flowed out of the torn neck of the homunculus, and bits of sinew still stuck to the head as she raised it high above her own.

Effie stared into the old man's spinning eyes for a brief moment.

Then, she slammed the torn head into the floor with all her might, causing it to burst like a loaded grenade.

There was a shockwave and a deafening thunderclap. When the dust settled, a vast web of cracks covered the stone floor of the throne room, spreading outward from the point where Effie's hand rested in a puddle of liquid metal.

The body of the homunculus finally stopped moving.

She exhaled slowly...

And slowly fell to the floor.

“Aaah...”

Effie was in a sea of pain. Her strength had left her, and she couldn't even move a finger. Worse still, she could feel blood flowing out of her body. Her essence seemed to be flowing away, as well, as if her soul had become a sieve that was incapable of holding it.

‘Am I... dying?’

She didn't know.

It sort of seemed that way, though. Gathering what little strength she had left, Effie twisted her neck and looked at the Gateway of Mirage Castle. It seemed so far away... but she had to reach it, somehow.

‘Right. Let's crawl, Effie. Just... let's move.’

But she couldn't move. She couldn't make her body obey.

In the end, she had only made it a few meters away from the headless corpse of the homunculus when a shadow fell over her. Looking up, Effie saw a familiar face.

It was Thane. The defenders of the Castle seemed to have pushed her soldiers back, and they had no choice but to retreat into the throne room.

Effie smiled weakly.

“Thane... that Gateway is so damn far. I don't think I am going to make it. So... go conquer it in my stead, will you? No time... to waste..."

The flamboyant Saint stared down at her with a frozen expression. Then, his lips moved slightly.

"No, just... I think you should take it, Saint Athena."

Effie's pale smile widened a tiny bit.

“Oh? So... I should just take it, huh? Gods... how audacious. My husband is right there..."

She tried to laugh, but it caused her too much pain, so she coughed instead and grew quiet.

“Ah... I'm afraid I'm not very mobile at the moment, Thane."

But someone had to finish the job.

Thane stared at her for a moment, then looked away.

And then, he shouted:

“What are you standing there for, blockheads?! Come help Saint Athena reach the Gateway! It's inconvenient for her to move right now..."

‘What is he even...'

Effie heard the sound of footsteps, and someone's hands carefully hoisted her up. Then, she felt the world moving past her. Her soldiers were carrying her to the Gateway.

‘How embarrassing.'

But then again, Effie had experienced this exact thing myriad times in her youth, before regaining her health as a Master. Being lifted and carried around by people, unable to move through the world herself. Her eyes suddenly felt hot.

She had tried to escape it so earnestly, and here she was, in exactly the same spot. Well, it didn't matter that much.

Someone had to finish the job, and that someone was Effie.

It did not matter whether she crawled to the Gateway or was carried to it.

The only thing that mattered was that she and her soldiers — most of them — were still alive, and the mission entrusted to them was about to be completed.

In the fractured hall of the Ebony Tower, Asterion staggered slightly in the middle of a swing, allowing the Mad Prince to evade his devastating blow.

Mirage Castle was now gone from his Domain, diminishing his terrifying power a little.

The Jade Palace was gone, too.

So was the Night Garden.

And the Ivory Tower, as well — Rain succeeded in breaking his connection to its Gateway, stealing the Great Citadel from beneath a Supreme just as she had promised to do.

Each of the Great Citadels only accounted for a small part of his tyrannical authority, considering that the spreading plague of his Domain did not rely on the Nightmare Spell. However, they still added to his power, so being robbed of all four was enough to make Asterion feel the loss.

And those four Great Citadels, while important, were insignificant in the grand scheme of all the things Asterion was losing.

The real attack was happening somewhere else, unseen and unwitnessed by anyone. It was happening within the minds of myriad people, where a furious battle between the Dreamspawn and Cassie was raging.

And Asterion...

Asterion was losing that battle.

That was because while he could manipulate human minds, Cassie could manipulate their memories. And memories were the foundation of the mind — without them, there was simply nothing for the Dreamspawn to twist and pervert. So, instead of trying to overpower his fearsome Aspect, she simply made his powers irrelevant.

All across the two worlds, people were being cleansed of the plague. Cassie erased their memories of knowing who Asterion was, of ever hearing his name... she tried to be deliberate about which memories she was destroying, but his influence was too ubiquitous by now.

In most cases, she simply had to erase everything that had happened since the Dreamspawn escaped his prison on the Moon.

But that was a blessing in disguise, as well. Because Cassie could work much faster without the need to be delicate... infinitely faster, even.

In these moments of intense concentration, her mind had become so vast that even she struggled to define its boundaries. Millions of perspectives all fused into a roaring ocean of sensations, all enthralling her with their vibrant intensity.

Then, billions of them.

Billions of minds, multiplied by a deep sea of memories contained within each of them... Cassie would have long lost her own self, forgetting the way back to her own body and her own perspective... to her own identity.

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